


Nightmares

by Ango_Isqua



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Nightmares, Sam Winchester Has Nightmares, Sam Winchester Has PTSD, Sam Winchester Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-28
Updated: 2020-11-28
Packaged: 2021-03-02 23:28:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,481
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24325048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ango_Isqua/pseuds/Ango_Isqua
Summary: Sam has always had nightmares, be they filled with fire, monsters, Hell, or the Devil.----------------------------------------------------------Sam's nightmares throughout his life. Up to the end of season 15.
Relationships: Dean Winchester & Sam Winchester
Comments: 2
Kudos: 20





	Nightmares

**Author's Note:**

> I will update this as I work through season 15, and hopefully there will be a happy ending then.
> 
> ***
> 
> Well season 15 is over, and while it wasn't perfect I'm still basing this piece off it. I know they had to make some sacrifices due to covid, and while I might not agree I can understand.

Sam had always had nightmares. When he was very young they were mostly nonsensical, childish. Sometimes though they were filled with fire, blood, and a woman who seemed so horribly familiar. On those nights he would wake up screaming and crying, and Dean would be there with a glass of water and calming words. As he got older Sam's nightmares began to be made up more by monsters. He would see them ripping apart Dean and his dad, and would wake up in a cold sweat. There was no more screaming though, no more comfort from Dean, he was too old for that now. Years passed and the nightmares began to fade. Sometimes after particularly hard hunts they would come back with a vengeance, but for the most part he was too exhausted to dream at all.

When he left for college things got better, when he drempt the dreams were of him and Jessica, or of upcoming tests. On the occasions when old memories fought their way to the front of his mind, and he woke up tangled in the sheets, she was there beside him and would stroke his hair, murmuring quiet comforts. Then she burned, and for months every time he drifted off she was there, calling for him, and he was frozen, powerless to save her. Sometimes the body on the ceiling would change to a woman he had seen only in photographs, or even to that of Dean or his friends from Stanford.

Eventually those dreams faded as well, but they were soon replaced by visions of deaths. So much death, strangers all over the country dieing in a myriad of ways, and he couldn't save even a fraction of them. Dean died, somewhere in there, over and over again. On that endless Tuesday, and each of those deaths hurt more than any stranger's. Through the six months after, Sam's nightmares were of Dean's deaths replayed in painful detail. Those particular dreams never really left him, coming on like reruns whenever things got slow. Dean came back eventually, and Sam tried to convince himself it never happened.

The visions of strangers ended when Sam lost his powers, and things were momentarily back to normal. Then the apocalypse came, and there was no time for sleep, the world was ending. When he let in Lucifer, after that first, oh so brief, battle of the minds, he slept curled up in a corner of his own mind. During that time his dreams were tainted by the devil's darkness, but those shadows were broken by Dean's voice, calling to him. At his brother's words Sam rallied himself, and for those few moments, he beat the beast, and then he fell.

There was no sleeping in hell, unless it was part of a mind game, and even then it offered no respite. After more than a hundred years of relentless torture, time had became meaningless, and sleep was little but a forgotten memory. When he was pulled back into his body, his life, by Death, it was as if those years had never been. So, for a time, all was as before the fall, until Castiel broke down the wall in Sam's mind. He was trapped then, in his own head. Once he had killed his other selves, become whole again, and rushed to the aid of Dean and Bobby, he began his decline.  
Sam was wracked by new nightmares, where he was back in the pit, or worse, where everything that had happened was another cruel game. Lucifer wasn't helping, constantly hovering around making the waking hours almost as unbearable as the sleeping ones. When Castiel took the damage of Sam's soul onto himself the nightmares calmed, and Lucifer was no more than a passing shadow. Hell was not gone though, and the cage still haunted Sam's memory. When he fell asleep, he returned there, not every night, but too many.

The visions came, after the darkness had risen, taking him back to the cage even during the day. It hurt so much to be forced back there, but worse, it felt safe, and Lucifer's hands on him were gentle. Standing outside the temporary cage, Sam tried to control the terror that threatened to overwhelm him. Speaking to the devil brought back memories of times in hell that he'd pushed to the very furthest reaches of his mind. Then he was in the cage and while he took a deep breath, tried to calm down, Lucifer's revelations hit him brutally in the gut. His mind had been violated, again.

Once they were all out, and life continued, the nightmares returned in full force. Practically every night Sam jerked upright, drenched in a cold sweat, convinced he was back, trapped, again. Some nights he would scream or call out in his sleep, and Dean would come running, but just as Sam left Dean to his night terrors, Dean left Sam to his, it was an unspoken agreement between them not to burden each other. When they discovered Castiel was Lucifer, it shook Sam. He worked constantly to keep himself under control, but every moment near Satan pulled him closer to the cage hovering at the edges of his mind.  
They had thought Lucifer was gone, but he came back again and again. Every time they thought they were safe they would turn around and there he was, that smug look on his face. Even when he was dead, and Nick was gone, the nightmares never let up. The constant stress, the losses he had suffered, everything made his nights unbearable. It wasn't just the devil either, it was Mary hanging in that spiked cage, or Jack, laying dead on the blankets. It was new horrors piled on top of old ones that he had just kept pushing down. Sam couldn't face them, he didn't have time, there was always a crisis, always someone in danger. So the nightmares blended into cacophonies of every terrible thing he'd ever done, or seen, or lived through, and many he hadn't.

After the apocalypse world Sam became a leader, more than he had been before. The number of hunters reporting to him increased as word spread of his work and resources, and sleep became a precious luxury. Once again, for the most part, Sam was too tired for nightmares.

The hits never stopped coming, Maggie's death, Mary's, and then Jack's, the sorrow never cut out. Their faces haunted him, adding to the crowd of those he'd failed, those he couldn't save. It didn't matter that he didn't sleep enough for nightmares, they were with him always, their tormented eyes unblinking.

The ghost apocalypse came, and went, like so many before. Those new losses, Rowena, Ketch, weighed on Sam as well. It was all adding up, coming to a head, and it was getting harder and harder to look to tomorrow. Then new nightmares came. Visions of what could have been, and what could still be. Sam and Dean, killing each other, in all the ways a mad God could devise.

It was peaceful for a while. Chuck was off destroying worlds and they had some time for themselves. God's shadow hung over them though, and sleep did not come easily. When he did come back, his arrival marked by falling stars, everything happened very quickly. It was one thing after another, solving each unimaginable disaster as it came.

Then it was over. Jack was God, everything was fixed. It was so good, it was the life they'd always hoped to find, and Sam slept well. They went on hunts, they stayed home, there was no need to save the world, just a couple people here, a couple people there. Then Dean, Dean died. Rather ingloriously, but it didn't matter how he died, it just mattered that he was gone. The nightmares came back in full force. Dean's deaths took center stage.

Time passes though. Time passed, and Sam grieved. He'd never done that before, not for Dean. He'd never moved on, but this time he did. He found Eileen, found old friends and new, and lived his life. It was not quite normal, not quite safe, but it was his, and it was good. Nightmares came, all kinds from all times. Lucifer, the cage, death, Death, monsters, spells, hopelessness, pain, all of it was his burden to bear, but he was no longer adding new weights to his back. There was peace now, he had the time to work through it all, sleepless night by sleepless night.

By the time he was dying, there were few nightmares left, they weren't gone, but they no longer haunted him as they had. So, when his son told him it was alright to go, Sam knew he was telling the truth, and he left. He joined his brother in heaven where the nightmares faded into distant memories. 


End file.
